The Walking Deadmen
by iLarryyy
Summary: Following the destruction of the original Wonderland prison, due to a second earthquake, Ganta Igarashi is transferred halfway across the world to the Meriwether Correctional Facility, in Georgia, USA. But after a sudden outbreak of an incurable, infectious and lethal madness, Ganta is left alone to fight the undead... until a certain group of survivors comes knocking at his door.
1. Chapter 1 - The New Wonderland

**Ganta Igarashi.**

 **Wrongfully imprisoned.  
** **Made to repent for his uncommitted sins  
** **And to walk through hell and back.**

 **Tortured through mind and body.  
** **Pushed to breaking point.  
** **Forced to fight for his life**

 _ **And kill his only friends.**_

* * *

He saw nothing.

His experience of the world he lived in was reduced to a cacophony of muffled sounds and searing pain that came when he least expected it.

He could hear them talking now.

"Approaching destination. Prisoner is secure and ready to be transferred." a low, grumbling voice spoke from near to him.

Another voice replied, but this one was disembodied, synthetic and raspy. "Fucking brilliant. Just make sure the little shit doesn't squirm. We don't want a fuss in front of the other inmates… that could turn out to be a problem. You read me?"

"Loud and clear. I'll handle it."

He felt the truck grind to a halt and he swayed in his seat.  
Suddenly, a hand grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him into a standing position.

"Get off me, you stupid-" he began to say as he turned his bag-covered head towards the hand.

Another hand grabbed his other shoulder and threw him to the side. He tripped in his blindness and plummeted to the metal floor of the truck. Just before he could bring up his fused straitjacket-arms to break his fall, a brutal kick to the ribs shot him backwards.

He fell.  
And crashed onto what felt like hardened dirt specked with gravel.  
He heard a grunt of effort and two feet landed beside him; once again a powerful hand grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to stand up.

He felt the bag shifting on his head, and his eyes suddenly flooded with blinding light.  
Beams shone through his thick, tousled black hair. He squinted his large, dark blue eyes as they adjusted to the sheer intensity of the crisp yellow rays that burst from the midday sun.

They focused.

A huge, ugly behemoth of a building sat at the top of a gradually sloping hill straight ahead, in the distance. Several other short, fat white-washed buildings dotted with pathetically small windows lay around it.  
The image of the heinous complex of edifices was broken up by a triple-layering of immensely tall mesh fences that bared furious teeth of chrome barbed wire.

He looked up to see a huge concrete guard tower with railed balconies looming above him.

The person who had been throwing him around was a burly, grizzly-looking man dressed in a plain, black, padded guard uniform, with huge shiny boots and fingerless gloves. The man gave him an almighty shove.

He stumbled forwards, and cursed as he struggled to keep his balance and began to walk slowly towards the fence.  
It started to slide open with a rattle, and he could see another man dressed similarly to this one pulling it open from the side.  
As he stepped over the threshold, and his bare feet sank into the harsh gravel at the entrance.

This place was to be a part of him now.

His new home.

* * *

"I'll go round the outside through that ditch and flank the two on the right, OK? You cover me."

"You got it."

Rick sprinted out from behind the police car and leaped into the soggy little ditch by the side of the road. Bullets and buckshot zipped past him as he flew.

He landed with a squelch and immediately began to combat crawl through the nettles and the damp grass. He could hear the crack of Shane's 9mm and the roar of other two officers' pump-actions blasting behind him as the two suspects took cover behind their overturned SUV, which was now riddled with bullets.

He stopped just close enough to get a definite shot on the two leather jacket-clad men and slowly got into a crouching position. He drew his trusty Python 44. and aimed its polished sights at the torso of one of the men.  
He inhaled.

His finger began to clasp around the trigger.

 _ **"RICK!"**_

Rick turned at the sound of Shane's voice.

And felt himself explode.

He toppled backwards into the ditch in an eruption of ripped cloth, torn-apart flesh and spraying blood as a myriad of sparkling little stars of lead ripped through the left of his torso.  
His head lolled back onto the grass, and as the sky became ever more colourless to his eyes, his shirt began to soak with blood.

* * *

He could almost feel his blood soaking through his shirt.

It pressed up against the walls of his veins, desperate to get out, to free itself and be rid of its oppressors.  
The dark red fluid that coursed through him almost had a will of its own.  
Almost.

Silently, he trundled down the corridors. To his left, jeering crowds of riled-up, hungry, bored men smashed the steel bars that separated them from what little freedom they were entitled to. They screamed hollow insults at him and writhed in their cages.

The man behind him pushed him head-first through a set of double-doors and slammed them shut behind him.

Before him stood 4 figures clad in the familiar black uniform, and in the middle of them stood a short, ugly man with a horrendous frown on his round little face and his hands behind his back.  
He wore a white suit and polished white shoes, in contrast to the dark figures that surrounded him.

The wretched little man spoke.  
"Ganta Igarashi."

His voice was raspy but high pitched, which sounded particularly unsettling when coupled with his thick, southern accent.  
Ganta remained silent. He narrowed his eyes in defiance.

"You can forget that name for the rest of your life, kid. You will now be known only as DM-04. Understand?"

Ganta still refused to answer.

"I said, Do. You. **Under**. _**Fucking**_. **_STAND?!_** " the little man screeched.

Not a sound came from Ganta's mouth.

"You know what? I'm not even going to bother punishing you. I'll just let the kind old folks here at the Meriwether County Correctional Facility do the job for me.  
Take him away."

Ganta felt a gloved hand yank him backwards from the hair and he fell to the floor.  
The other four men closed in, one of them wielding a huge syringe filled with clear liquid.  
He squirmed and growled in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable.

Ganta felt himself being lifted into the air.

"I'll never give up!" he screamed at the top of his lungs at the little man, who was now walking away. "I'll fight every step of the way to get the fuck out of this damned place, I'll kill you all if that's what it takes!"  
The little man carried on walking for a few steps, then stopped and turned sharply on his shiny white heels.

Ganta's vision blurred as the syringe buried itself in his neck.

"You can forget that attitude for the rest of your life as well, kid.  
Fighting won't get you very far." he rasped.

" **…Not in _this_ place.** "


	2. Chapter 2 - And So It Begins

**Hello again!**

 **Please fave, follow review if you enjoyed this chapter!**

* * *

Ganta fell.

The cold, hard ground rushed towards him and light flooded his eyes.  
He smashed hard, jarring his bones and bruising his skin. The room was… no, the arena was a large, circular, open space surrounded by thick plexiglas and floored with marble.  
The air was clean, almost too clean, the pure oxygen stung his throat and every breath he took was rattling and invigorating.  
They had to keep the air clean.  
More oxygen helps you concentrate.  
And if you didn't want to get killed, you had to concentrate.

"Stand the fuck up, you fucking _cobarde._ "

A raspy voice from in front of him voice spat the hateful words that were laden with a thick Hispanic accent.  
Ganta slowly dragged himself to his bare feet.  
He could see a ring of floodlights up above him, and he squinted.  
His opponent came into view. He was a short man, about Ganta's height, with tanned skin and long, dark hair that was tied back into a ponytail at the bottom. A short but ragged beard was plastered to his chiselled jaw, and a small moustache sat on his lip. His dark-brown eyes were glaring menacingly and his crooked nose was flared in anger.  
He wore what everyone else wore, including Ganta. A flimsy, ragged blue 2-piece prison jumpsuit clung to his figure, and his intimidatingly bulky arms were clearly visible in the cloth folds.

" _Yo soy Tomas, **vato.**_ You have any idea what that means for you, **Chinky boy**?"

"I'm Japanese, you ignorant **fuck**." Ganta muttered. "And you're not supposed to tell me your name."

"That doesn't matter in here, _vato_. All I care about is messing you up, pounding you into _el piso_ and then having my shitty prison lunch and a cold drink." Tomas rasped. "I'm _thirsty_ , hombre _._ Thirsty for your **blood**."

Ganta's face began to contort into a snarl. He bent his legs and adopted a fighting stance, both palms raised.

" **Then have it!** "  
Ganta screamed as his hands began to rip open and blood poured from them, falling to the ground, only to hover back up to his hands again. His arms were encircled by the air-suspended streams of the dark-red elixir, and he tensed every muscle in his body.  
In his palms, small, pea-sized spheres made from his life's scarlet essence began to form.  
Suddenly, he thrust his whole body forward, and the spheres flew at his opponent with blinding speed.

Tomas ducked and the small red pellets pinged off the transparent wall behind him. As soon as he went up again, he started running towards Ganta.  
In response, Ganta fired again. And again. And again.  
He was now unleashing a barrage of ruby droplets at the approaching man.

Although a few connected with the opponent's body, he kept running. He shrugged it off like it was nothing.

Tomas' bones began to shake inside his hands, and with a groan, blood spurted from them. Unlike Ganta, his blood did not form streams, but instead encased his fists in large, soccer ball-type spheres that were growing in size, and they swung at his sides with his arms.

 _ **"AAARRGHH!"**_ Tomas shrieked as he leapt at Ganta.

At the last moment, he sidestepped. Tomas tumbled forwards onto the floor, but soon regained his balance and scrambled back up.  
By then it was too late.  
Ganta had already formed a huge, shining ball of blood in his outstretched hand, with his other hand clutching his glowing chest.  
"This one was gonna be for you, Minatsuki." Ganta whispered as he let loose the almighty blast.

Tomas' eyes widened and he screamed as he was crushed against the plexiglas.

* * *

"It's crazy. They're fucking **shooting** people in the hallways… Rick. I hope you can hear me somewhere in there. Listen to me. I have to leave you. I'll take care of your wife… and Carl. You know, Rick… I'm… I'm just so sorry abou-"  
Shane was cut off by a barrage of ear-piercing cracks of gunfire out in a corridor nearby.

"I gotta go, man. _I-I'm sorry_." Shane apologised half-heartedly, knowing that really, Rick Grimes was dead to the world. He wouldn't even realise if he died.

Shane barged out of the hospital room doors and grabbed the nearest bed-on-wheels. He shoved it in front of Rick's door, and with some small stroke of luck, Rick would wake up in one piece. If, of course, he wasn't dead already.

He drew his trusty 9mm and began to jog away from his best friend for the last time.

* * *

Ganta had won every fight he'd taken part in.

Well of course he had… these guys were noobs. They were experimental, and he was accidental. It was the crystals. The red stuff. That's what they used to give people the powers.

The Second Great Earthquake was the cause of it. The old Wonderland was destroyed, and a few new ones popped up in less tectonically-active places. Like here.  
They had mined the shit out of the new source of crystal, distributing the stuff illegally around the world through top-secret trading organisations. They didn't care where it went, what it was used for.  
Somehow it all ended up back in the hands of the people who had originally abused its power.  
And now it was being stuck into prison inmates arbitrarily, for whatever reason.

Ganta sat silently in his windowless, pitch-black cell, contemplating his life. How long had it been? A few weeks? A few months at most. The Red Man was probably still out there, roaming free, blowing up classrooms full of teenagers without a care in the world.  
He was back to square one.  
He had almost made it out of there, and now he was going to have to restart the process in here.  
 _But what then? Where would he go? Who could he trust out there? No friends? No family?_

 ** _What would it be worth?_**

His self-wrought façade of anger and determination faltered for a brief moment, and a single teardrop slowly rolled down his darkened face.

* * *

Axel flopped onto the grass.

Sweat was dripping from his brow and hung in dark patches beneath his scrawny little arms. A long, smooth mustache spouted from beneath his nose, in contrast with his wiry grey hair. The sun beamed down on the prison yard, reflecting off the shiny blades of grass and the chrome-toothed barbed wire that topped the fences at the bottom of the gently sloping hill.  
All around him, men of all sizes, colours and ages stood in groups or by themselves, their ragged, pale-blue jumpsuits flapping in the warm breeze. The frantic, hushed whispers of discreet conversation buzzed in his ears.

 _"Axel, you little shit!"_

He sat up suddenly, surprised. He began to move his head in the direction of the voice just as he heard the sound of approaching feet slamming against the dirt. He turned just in time to see the sole of a long, black plimsoll shoe flying toward his face.

 _ **Crack!**_

Axel's head snapped backwards and he keeled over, rolling down the grassy hill a few times until he came to a stop. He moaned in pain and he brought a hand to his face. Blood was gushing from his nose and it spurted slightly with every exhalation.  
He gingerly opened his eyes to see three menacing figures marching towards him, two tall, muscular black men and a short, bulky white guy with a tattoo of a star in the middle of his forehead and an ugly snarl. One of the black men had a small black beard, and a face that looked innocent but a bit dim. The other man was evidently the leader; he was standing in the middle and had blood on his left plimsoll. A little gold ring was pierced through his ear, and he had a small scar on the side of his dark, bald head.

The other two men wrenched Axel to his feet.

"I gave you those fuckin' cigs, boy, an' you said you was gon' pay me." The ringleader spat. "And what did you do? You avoided me fo' two days, thinking I forgot. You got some nerve, you bitch-ass redneck."

Axel groaned. "I will, Dex, I will... I just need some more time... it's not finished yet."  
"Fuck that! You failed to deliver, and you're gonna pay the price." Dexter growled. He turned to his cronies. "Let's show this punk-ass."

The two men that grasped Axel threw him backwards suddenly, and he tumbled onto the ground. He struggled to get back up on his feet, but he was too slow. The white man with the ugly tattoo picked him up by the scruff of his neck and spun him around, folding his arms behind his back.  
"You're gonna fuckin' love this." he hissed in Axel's ear.

The other black man stepped in close, crouching as he advanced. He drove his fist into Axel's exposed belly, his fist squelching against thinly distributed muscles, and his helpless victim doubled over, clutching his newly winded stomach with both hands. Axel began to drag himself to his feet.  
Dexter calmly began to walk towards him, motioning for his cronies to hang back.

"I changed my mind." He rasped. "I'm gonna knock some sense into this son of a bitch myself."

He swung.  
Axel ducked, the bulky arm soaring above his head. His fist came flying upwards, only managing to glance the jaw of his assailant. Dexter let loose an almighty front jab kick in response, and Axel stumbled backwards.  
He gradually neared the bottom of the sloping yard, ever backing further away from the thug.

It wasn't like he didn't know how to fight. His big brother had always been a bit of a troublemaker, and naturally, Axel had followed in his footsteps. Scuffles with other kids at school, with older guys, bikers, drug dealers, the lot. That was surprising, considering his less-than-intimidating build.  
Well, that was how he had got into this place.  
Following up on his brother's antics. He would sometimes laugh to himself about it. Robbing a bank with a water pistol had got him doing 5 years for armed robbery.  
Of course, it was his brother who had shot the guy behind the till. God knows where he was right now.

Axel came in fast and low, thudding into Dexter at the waist and bringing him to the ground. Axel clambered on top of the floored inmate's chest. Dexter grappled his collar, but Axel shrugged him off as he raised a fist.

 _Crack! Crack! Crack!_

Dexter's head snapped to its sides as Axel unleashed a slow barrage of punches, each one hurting his bleeding fists more and more each time. Dexter's cronies began to shout, and in the corner of his vision, Axel saw them approach.  
That didn't matter.  
Axel suddenly felt something burst inside of him as he sped up the beating. All of his days spent in misery and fear, a constant struggle to stay away from the top dogs but not to sink low enough to become their victim, it all started to mean less and less as he relentlessly slugged away at the face of the now-helpless man below him.

* * *

 _ **Kabam!**_

* * *

The crack of a rifle rang out into the sky.  
Everyone froze.

 _"Don't move a muscle!"_ a synthetic voice shouted through a huge megaphone. _"Everyone, down on the ground! You, get off him!"_

Axel flopped off Dexter's limp body and put his hands on his head.

 _"All other prisoners must remain calm while we detain this miscreant. Anyone moves and they're dead!"_

Needless to say, no-one moved.  
The set of iron double doors into the main guard tower burst open and two bulky men clad in black guard uniform, both armed with tazers, marched out onto the grass, towards Axel.  
He felt himself being wrenched onto his feet, and with his hands still over his head, he was shoved in the direction of the prison.  
The pit.  
That's where they'd put him. No-one really knew what it was, but once you went there, no-one else in the prison would ever see you again. Did they kill you once you got there? Did they beat you?  
No-one really knew.

And just as the gates of hell were about to scrape across the gravel, someone shouted from behind him.

 **"What the hell is _that_?!"**

Everyone in the prison turned in the direction of the voice. It was an inmate, with his index finger stretched out ahead of him, pointing beyond the prison fence.  
Every pair of eyes in the vicinity traced the direction of his finger.

Axel's eyes widened.

Behind the wire mesh stood a man in a grey suit that was torn at the shoulders.

With crusted blood splattered on his tie.  
With only a flaky stump for a left arm.  
With his jaw cracked down the middle.

And a pair of lifeless white eyes.


	3. Chapter 3 - Intruders

**Thanks for your continued support! Hope you enjoy this one.**

* * *

Axel craned his neck and peered over his shoulder as the two guards dragged him up the hill.

The dressed-up, armless man was limping ever so slowly towards the outer fence. His ripped shoe revealed a muddy foot that was bent inwards at an acute angle, his broken jaw hung loosely beneath his face, and his rotten, flaky eyelids were drooped over a pair of lifeless, glazed-over orbs.  
Axel caught all of this in the blink of an eye.  
Within an instant he was forced through a pair of double doors that slammed shut behind him, barely just muffling a unified cry of confusion and shock from the surrendering inmates outside. Axel stumbled as the guards pulled him to his feet.

 ** _"Hey there."_**

Axel snapped his head toward the voice. It was high-pitched and raspy, tinged by a thick, southern drawl. Prison Governor Jared Caine. That meant…

 _Shit._

He whispered the expletive to himself while he watched the tiny man stroll towards him in his shiny white suit. The man was balding, with only a small patch of greasy hair sprouting from the top of his head like a pineapple. Caine brushed some fluff off of his squared shoulders and stopped a few paces in front of him, standing up as tall as a man of his stature could, and crossed his arms.

"You gave that colored man quite a beating back there, mister…" he paused and looked expectantly at him.

"Oh. Uhh… A-Axel, sir." Axel stuttered after a few seconds.

"Axel, huh? Pretty good moves for a scrawny shit such as yourself." Caine hissed.

Axel said nothing, not daring to challenge the temper of the miniscule beast of a man that stood before him. Caine clasped his arms behind his back and looked Axel dead in the eyes, squinting as though examining every inch of his malnourished body in excruciating detail.

"Now, Axel… I think you have potential. You've got a real talent for this sort of thing, I can tell. You've got the skills, but… ya need the strength to match it."

Axel was confused and began to panic. "Governor, sir, what do y-"

"Take him away." Caine made a swirling motion with his index finger as he turned on his heels and began to walk away from him, pulling a cellphone as big as his hand out from his shiny white jacket. "And be quick about it, will ya? We ain't got all day."

Axel felt a sharp pain shoot through his neck, spread along his arms and rocket into his brain. His vision fogged and his eyelids drooped involuntarily.  
In his final moments of darkness, he heard a voice, overriding the violent confusion that was raging inside his head.

 _"And Axel!  
You'd better forget that name.  
You're DM-07 now.  
And you're a dead man."_

* * *

Ganta sat up.

A cacophony of panicked cries crashed against his eardrums. Had he imagined it?  
It wasn't like he heard much in here anyway. Every wall was three feet thick and lined with titanium. Of course, his cell was only one of a few that were like this.  
But… there it was again.  
The muffled sound of a hundred fearful voices crying out in unison. It didn't sound like a riot… no, the shock in their voices was too genuine.

What was going on?

* * *

Dexter had been lying there in shock for the past ten minutes.

Being the victim wasn't something he was used to at all.  
He didn't know that the little guy had it in him. He didn't know what to say… but his practically broken jaw probably wouldn't have let him say anything anyway.  
The sound of rushing blood in his ears died down slowly and he began to take notice of the shouting voices. A gasp for fresh air proved to be futile as a stream of crimson liquid spurted from his nose and over his lips. He put his trembling hands on the ground beside him and sat up.

The courtyard was empty.

And yet, he could still hear his fellow inmates yelling, although louder now. He couldn't pick out any individual words from the cascade of sound, but he gradually realized that they were shouting at _him.  
_ He shakily hopped onto his feet, looking back at the prison. He raised his arms up at the men in an intimidating manner, beckoning them to challenge him  
What the _fuck_ did they want?  
His heart began to race when he noticed that they were all pointing. Pointing behind him as they shouted.

Dexter had barely begun to turn around when a single row of rotten teeth sank into his neck.

* * *

 _"Governor Caine, we have a critical emergency on the North Fe-"_

"I'm going up. This had better be under control pretty _fucking_ quickly." Caine spat into the cellphone.  
After a short sprint up two flights of stairs, he barged through a single door that led onto the roof of the prison. A gust of putrid, foul-smelling air washed over him and he buried his crooked, exposed nose in the collar of his stainless jacket.

He strutted over to the edge and leaned over the railing.  
Jared Caine had seen a plethora of unspeakable and indescribably horrific things throughout the forty-eight years since his birth, many of which he had caused himself.  
But _nothing,_ **_nothing_** compared to this.

A crowd of stinking, rotten, ragged, filthy, half-naked, mutilated, blood-encrusted people were funneling into the prison through a sequence of huge gaps in the triple-layered wire fence and were bunching up at the bottom of the sloping courtyard.  
In the middle of the thick crowd that was lingering just inside the fence, some of the rotten wanderers were crouched down on the grass, clambering over each other like eager puppies. Caine's beady little eyes glazed over when he realized what they were so enthusiastic about.

Pieces of a torn, blood soaked, blue prison uniform were plastered to the faces of some of the wandering figures.

He came to his senses.  
"Open fire." he uttered the command into his cellphone.  
There came no reply from the men atop the guard tower. After a few silent seconds, one trembling voice dared to be heard.

 _"S-sir, we can't jus-"_

"I _said,_ open **fucking** fire you goddamned **_dolts!_** "

* * *

 _"Hold still now, 07. This might hurt a little, but it'll hurt a heck of a lot more if you keep wriggling about like that."_

 _"Please… w-why? Why d'you… h-have to d-d-do this to me?…"_

 _"That isn't the question, 07. What you should be asking yourself is: why **shouldn't** we do this to you?"_

 _"I… I have... human rights, you **f-fucker!** "_

 _"Human rights? You lost those about a quarter of an hour ago, 07. And from now on… you're not going to be a normal human anyway. You are going to be… so much **more** than that."_

 _"What the fuck does that mean?! Get… your hands off m-me you goddamned… psycho!"_

 _"That's a hurtful accusation, 07. I'm just doing my job, and soon… you're going to be doing yours."_

 _"Huh?!"_

 _"We'll see who's the 'psycho' when we both get our paychecks at the end of the month. Now, if you would **please** hold still…"_

 ** _"NO! NO, N-AAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGGGHHH!"_**

* * *

Shane blasted the horn.

They hadn't moved an inch since lunchtime, and the road to Atlanta seemed to stretch out into the distance far more than it should.  
He slammed his fist on the dashboard before kicking the door open. He paced backwards and forwards, rubbing the back of his head in frustration. Atlanta was their best bet. He was sure of it.  
They probably had food, shelter… everything they needed to survive. And best of all, they had guns.

"Shane! What's the situation?" a firm, feminine voice asked from behind.

He turned to see Lori jogging towards him. The sun was beaming down on her shiny hair and glistened in her deep brown eyes. She was tall and rather thin, but her tight-fitting white top and dark blue jeans still accentuated the curves he had dreamt about every night for the past five years. It was at times like this that he was glad that Rick was gone.  
But was he really glad? He knew he shouldn't be… but Lori and Carl had always meant more to him than Rick ever could have, even if he _was_ his best friend. And now… he had them all to himself.

"We ain't budgin', Lori. I think we're gonna have to walk. Could ya tell Carol that she needs to get packed up if she's comin' with us? I think Carl would like havin' Sophia around. "

"Sure. I'm glad you're in charge, Shane. You know what to do to get things done." Lori smiled as she walked off to tell the others.

Shane waited until she was out of earshot.  
"I'm glad I'm in charge too, Lori." he muttered under his breath.

* * *

 ** _Crack-Crack! Crack! Cr-Crack! Crack! Crac-Crac-Cr-Crack!_**

* * *

Caine watched as the torrent of 308.s and 12Gs tore through the roamers.

The ones inside the prison fence went down, pushed towards the ground by the sheer force of the bullets and buckshot smacking against their fragile torsos. Crusty holes gaped where the rifles had struck true, and the sparkling stars of buckshot from the blazing shotguns embedded themselves firmly in the falling intruders.  
He pressed a button on his cellphone that linked it directly to the loudspeakers all around the prison.

 ** _"You have been charged with trespassing on state property. Surrender now, or you will be shot like your accomplices."_**

The crowd outside the fence was not even fazed by this. They just continued to stumble very slowly towards the prison. Caine gradually began to notice that there were still more of them coming out of the forest beyond. A few would emerge from behind the trees every few seconds.

 ** _"Stop, in the name of the law! You have five seconds! Five… Four… Three… Tw-"_**

His warning was cut short.  
He had dropped his cellphone. It tumbled through the air and clattered onto the concrete, the battery popping out of the case and the screen shattering.  
Caine stood leaning over the railing with his eyes wide open and his mouth agape.  
The intruders that had been shot began to stir.  
They slowly got onto their rotting feet…

And carried on stumbling towards the prison as if nothing had happened.

* * *

 **Ooohhh...**

 **Quite the chapter, eh? Well, _you_ tell _me._ See you next update!**


	4. Chapter 4 - Hostile Takeover

**Hey everyone! I'm back again, sorry for not posting in a long time, I've had a lot of stuff going on with school (bad grades = parents making me do extra work). Just a short chapter here that will be extended later.**

* * *

 ** _"_** ** _Fuck."_**

Shane dropped to his knees.  
His shotgun fell from his hands, clattering onto the tarmac. He put his head in his palms, and he clenched his teeth together as hard as he could to stop himself from breaking down into tears of rage.  
Atlanta was full of them.

 **"** **Shane! Get the hell up!"**

The sound of Lori's voice reached out to him through the void of despair. He snarled, snatched up his weapon and turned sharply, not daring to look back at the crowd of stumbling, stupid, rotten creatures, which had just started to notice the crowd of nimble, living prey. Sure, they ate people alive, but… what the fuck else did they do? What did they _think_ about when they were just… walking around like purposeless idiots?

 _Walking around._  
Yeah, that was it.  
They walked.  
They weren't monsters. Just…

 _ **Walkers.**_

* * *

Ganta bashed his fist on the cell wall.

"Hello! What's happening out there?! ** _HELLO?!_** "

He screamed for an answer in vain. Thick titanium walls aside, the sound of screaming inmates would probably have drowned his cries out anyway.  
Just as he was about to give up and slump back onto the cold, metal floor, one of the walls began to shake. It scraped across the concrete on the outside and slid open very slowly. Artificial light peered out from the widening gap, and Ganta shielded his nocturnally-adjusted eyes to the sudden influx of light.

The sliding door ground to a halt.

A long, white-washed corridor stretched out ahead of him, lined with rows of other cell doors. One muscular man in the familiar black guard uniform stood in the opening, armed with a high-calibre pistol and two electrified shock batons. Another man in identical uniform stood at least 40 paces behind him, with a small remote control in his hand. Ganta had thought about killing these two men every day for the past few months, but he knew as well as they did that he couldn't touch either of them. If he killed the closer man, the other would flick the switch on the remote before Ganta could get to him, electrocuting him to all hell from the collar on his neck. If he tried to attack the further man, the closer man would shoot him clean through the head before he even had time to finish off the other guy.  
It was ingenious, really, but ingenious wasn't what Ganta needed right now. And to his immense surprise, the closer man spoke.

"Y-you're co-coming with us, Governor's orders."

Ganta grinned. "Oooh. What's the occasion?"

 _"_ _N-no questions!"_

Ganta's eyes narrowed. This usually composed, stony-faced man was a nervous wreck all of a sudden. Some _really_ crazy shit must be happening. Just then, a prison guard burst through the double doors at the end of the corridor, panting frantically. A few seconds later, he was followed by two other guards, who drew their batons and slammed their bodies against the swinging doors. After a few moments, one of them began to shout in panic.

 _ **"**_ _ **Mike! Jose! Nate! Get the hell over here! They're coming!"**_

The guard that had come in with them immediately ran to help them, drawing his own baton as he backed up against the wall.

"Wait a sec! We've got this little bastard on our hands!" the guard with the remote turned and shouted back at the men. "We'll come an-"

 _ **CRASH!**_

The men holding the doors shot jolted forwards and scrambled up to push against them as hard as they could.

 _ **"**_ _ **Seriously! Help us!"**_

"Ahh _shit._ Nate, you got that son of a bitch?" the further man called to the closer man as he broke into a jog.

Nate raised his handgun to Ganta's head and craned his neck around to face his colleague.

"Y-yeah! I got him!"

He turned back around, and for a split second, he saw the outstretched palm of a teenaged boy about an inch from his face.

* * *

Caine drew a small, pearl-handled six-shooter from his clean white jacket as he ran. He had a vague awareness of a group of the rotting cannibals to his left, but he pressed on as fast as his tiny legs could carry him. He looked up into the guard towers, but they were already abandoned.  
No. He could see someone… a shady figure was scrambling out to the balcony of the nearest tower.

 _"_ _Oh shit,_ _ **shit!**_ _"_

The figure stepped into the light. It was a guard. Even from this distance, Caine could see the sun reflected off the tears that were streaming down the young man's face as the things came upon him.  
Caine picked up the pace. He could see them coming toward the large gap of the gate, which had been left completely open in the panicked frenzy that had followed. They'd be flooding in soon.  
A short burst of speed got him through the gates, across the gravel and out of the prison grounds.

Prisoner Governor Jared Caine disappeared into the trees.

* * *

Ganta let loose a blast of crimson in the man's face.

His head snapped backwards and he slammed against the wall, the back of his skull crunching on impact. Ganta snatched up his gun and aimed it down the corridor. One of the three men holding the door began to shout at him as he drew the remote that could stop Ganta's heart with the flick of a switch.  
Ganta squinted and began to shoot at the men, his wrist jolting violently with the massive recoil of the pistol.

Two of them went down, and the remote clattered to the floor a few feet away. Now only one man was holding the door shut. He was trembling as Ganta's cold, dead eyes locked with his. Just then, Ganta noticed that the screams from around the prison were starting to die down.

In a flash, the man dived towards the remote.

Ganta pulled the trigger.  
The man's face exploded mid-dive, and he slammed hard onto the floor, the remote mere inches from his grasp. Ganta walked to the remote and stamped on it as hard as he could, the plastic shattering and the circuitry snapping in two beneath his bare feet. He immediately yanked at the collar on his neck. It came off easily. He'd tried to remove it in the past, but of course, it hadn't been that simple. He'd get a shock if he even tried to touch it.

Ganta dropped the now-empty pistol, and looked up. He suddenly understood what the men had been so worried about.


	5. Chapter 5 - Rotten Revelations

With a grunt of effort, the sliding door shifted a notch until he was able to peer through a small gap. He pressed himself against the tiny opening in the cold metal and closed one grey-blue eye, the other darting frantically in the flickering light.  
He waited for a time that felt far longer than it should have been.  
Just as he began to clasp his fingers around the edge to open it further, he heard a spluttering growl from just outside and almost fell backwards in surprise. The cell darkened for a moment as the stumbling figure passed by the illuminated slit. He could see its mangled feet dragging on the smooth concrete, and he shivered in disgust.  
He waited once more.

When he no longer heard any rasping or scraping, he made for the door, quicker this time.

 ** _"_** ** _Ghaaahhhk!"_**

Ganta bit his tongue in shock at the sudden outburst, and seized up as another one of them clattered against the outside of the door, walking as though completely blind. The metal vibrated as the figure rattled its fragile body against it. He exhaled slowly.

" _Fuck_ it."

He muttered the words to himself as he strutted up to the door, violently shoving his fingers through the gap and heaving with effort. The door ground open as wide as he could pull it. He jumped back quickly, his fists raised and his brow crunched into a fierce scowl.  
In a mere moment, Ganta took in the appearance of the stumbling, mumbling imbecile: a tall, thin, fully naked man in his early thirties, with impeccable, sickly-white skin that was accented with splatters of brownish goo, a pair of murky white irises, a wide-open mouth that was rimmed with rotting red teeth, and perhaps most disturbingly… two crusty stumps where his arms had been severed at the elbow.  
Ganta froze.

 ** _"_** ** _Guuuuk!"_**

The man coughed violently and stumbled forward into the cell, his pearlescent eyes still unmoving and blank. Ganta hissed and let loose a right hook that cracked audibly against the man's jaw, causing his head to snap to the side. He swung from the left as hard as he could, smacking the man's head in the other direction, this time drawing a squirt of rust-tinted fluid. The man carried on his clumsy advance, completely unfazed by the brutal blows he had just received.

"What the _hell?!_ "

He growled, kicking the man square in the chest, causing him to tumble back into the corridor and trip over the legs of the prison guard that Ganta had killed only minutes before. He raised his right hand in the process, holding his wrist for support with his left, and five marble-sized spheres of scarlet blood formed at the tips of his seeping, splayed-out fingers.  
He flexed as soon as the man had got back onto his wobbly feet, and the quintet of sanguine projectiles spat at their target at the speed of sound.

* * *

 _"_ _What on earth's going on up there!?"_

 _"_ _I don't know. Caine said he'd come to check on him within the hour, but I haven't heard a peep."_

 _"_ _Something… something's not right. I'm going up… keep an eye on 07 until I come back."_

 _"_ _But what if he—"_

 _"_ _Don't worry about that. He's harmless at the moment."_

 _"_ _You can't just leave me alone with him, Steven!"_

 _"_ _Okay, Ava, okay, calm down. Look… I'm giving you this. If he makes a move, end him. Just remember that if worst comes to worst, you'll be the one responsible for wasting a perfectly viable Deadman. Understand?"_

 _"_ _Y-yes."_

 _"_ _Just… stall him or something until I get back."_

* * *

Axel heard the hurried conversation buzzing at the edge of his hearing.

His eyelids snapped open and searing light immediately convulsed in his vision. He squinted hard, instinctively trying to raise a hand to shield his blinded eyes. His arm barely budged. With great effort, he looked up at his unmoving limb and saw that it was strapped down to some sort of bed with what looked like coarse black leather laced with steel chains. After a brief struggle he discovered that his legs were restricted by the same bonds, as well as his neck and waist.

He became more accustomed to the harsh lighting, and after a few confused seconds, he realised that he was not actually lying down… but was instead upright. And in front of him… there was a scraggly, shirtless man identical to himself, spread-eagled on the wall opposite. He eyed his reflection up and down, his gaze coming to rest on a spot on his chest. There was an inflamed, pulsing stitch in his solar plexus where they had cut him and put **_something_** inside him.  
It hurt like hell; and it was the only time in Axel's life when he would rather be rotting in his cell right now.

"You're not going anywhere any time soon, if that's what you were thinking."

Axel turned towards the voice. It came from a short young woman that was probably in her early twenties, with a white labcoat and long brown hair that was tied back into a ponytail. No, she couldn't be in her early twenties… she looked younger than that. Eighteen, maybe?

That didn't matter. All that mattered was that she was the one in a labcoat, and he was the one strapped naked to a wall.

"Look, miss, there's been a mistake or something, I'm not s'posed to be here… maybe you could help me out a little by—"

The young woman forced a loud chuckle, cutting Axel off. "You honestly think you can just talk your way out of this with your _'Southern charm'_ , 07? You worthless scumbag. It's no wonder numbskull bastards like you get thrown in here in the first place."

Axel was taken aback. This girl looked way too professional to be spouting that kind of bullshit.

"I'm not—"

"Shut the fuck up, 07. You speak when I tell you to speak."

Axel was starting to get annoyed. Who did this bitch think she was, acting all high and mighty when he was tied up and sedated?

"You know what, 07? I'm surprised Governor Caine even selected you. You look like an utter crackhead. And you know what else? You probably won't even be able to compete with the others…"

Axel took deep breaths as the girl carried on ranting at him, straining to remain as calm as possible.

The girl's string of insults continued. _"...redneck cunt…"_

His blood began to boil. Not figuratively. Literally. He clenched his fists and flexed his calves, both struggling against the sedative and pushing hard against the restraints.

"You're not getting out, 07. I already told you. There's no way you can—"

Axel jolted forwards, carrying the steeled leather bonds along with him. He fell down onto his hands and knees and scrambled to his feet.

"Go on, lil' missus. _Finish your damn sentence._ "

* * *

Ganta sprinted out into the corridor.

By the door, there were two barely recognisable messes of bones and blood. The two prison guards. The third must have been dragged away. Ganta retched and put a hand to his mouth.

Huh. He would have thought that after everything he'd seen, he'd have been used to that kind of thing. But this… this was the next level of messed up.  
What were these things? Cannibal junkies? And how on earth did the plethora of guns stacked up in this godforsaken prison not stop them from getting in?

As if in answer to Ganta's question, he heard a growl from the other end of the corridor, next to his cell. The mutilated nudist dazedly got onto his feet and began to walk towards him. No. That wasn't possible. There was no way he could still be walking after that attack.  
Once again, as if in reply, the man's guts began to spill out onto the floor, seeping from his lower abdomen. It had been torn open by the Ganta Gun. The man tripped over his own intestines, falling forwards onto the floor. It was so ridiculous it was almost comical.

Ganta turned and barged through the double doors. They opened onto a railed, now-deserted catwalk that stretched along the length of the ceiling of a large, warehouse-like interior. Cell Block A.  
There were no screams now.  
The doors slammed behind him and he walked up to railing, daring himself to peek over the edge.

A swarm. That's what it was. An absolute clusterfuck of stumbling, tumbling, writhing bodies that tumbled over each other and clawed the air absent-mindedly, accidentally drawing blood from themselves and each other with their filthy nails and teeth. The rustling of torn-up clothes filled the air where they crouched down in groups, and they were stuffing their gaping mouths full of tufts of cotton-like flesh.  
And the smell. The unfathomably putrid stench of rotting carcasses caked in their own _shit._

Ganta threw up.

* * *

" ** _Stop!_** Don't _f-fucking_ move!"

The young woman raised the pistol to Axel's head. Her whole hand began to tremble, and her eyelids fluttered in pure fear.

Axel ripped off the steel bonds, and turned to her as they clattered onto the ground.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. Just… just let me out of here _, please!_ " Axel begged the woman, raising a hand to her as a gesture of peace.

 ** _"_** ** _STAY AWAY! GET THAT THING AWAY FROM ME!"_**

The girl's hands were shaking uncontrollably now, and tears rolled down her cheeks.

"I'm not gonna fucking hurt you! Now just… p-put the gun down _, ok!?_ " Axel took a step towards the woman, attempting to get closer to the gun.

She shrieked and stepped backwards, shaking even more fiercely.

"Stop, miss, stop! It doesn't have to—" Axel began.

His eyes locked with hers. Her frantic eyes seemed to focus for an instant, and something snapped inside of Axel. She was going to do it. He didn't quite know how, but in that very fraction of a second, Axel knew that she was going to pull the trigger and blow his brains out… and instincts he never knew he had instantly kicked in.

* * *

 ** _BLAM!_**

* * *

Axel closed his eyes, accepting that the sound was the last he would ever hear.

A few moments passed. Had she missed? What was going on? Why wasn't he dead yet?  
His eyes shot open.  
His arm was stretched out ahead of him, his fingers splayed out. A fading stream of thick red blood was dripping from his open palm.

And on the floor in front of him…

…the young woman lay flat, with a hole the size of a football straight through her chest.


	6. Adoption Notice

- **ADOPTION NOTICE-**

Hello, readers.

As you can probably tell, I have not uploaded a chapter to any of my stories in a very, very long time. Over the past year, my last school year, I have had little to no time to write fanfiction as well as little to no motivation or inspiration.

 **As a result, I've decided to offer most of my stories up for adoption (this excludes "The Darker Side").**

The word documents for all the chapters were saved on my old computer, which I no longer have, and due to my inactivity I have lost all documents saved on 's storage system. This simply means that I will add "(Part 1)" to the title of the current story and its continuation on the adopter's account will be labelled as "(Part 2)". I will put a footnote on the last chapter of Part 1, directing new readers to the adopter's account.

 **If you wish to adopt this story, please PM me.**

I will give some general comments on where I was planning for the story to go, but these are just mere suggestions and I'd appreciate if you could explain your ideas for the story in return. It would be preferable if you have written other fanfics already so I can look at examples of your work and decide who I will pass the story on to. Once I have chosen someone to adopt the story I will delete this message.

Thank you!


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